


try to make a devil out of me

by songbird97



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Fantasy, First Meetings, Gangs, M/M, Urban Fantasy, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-04-30 20:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14504706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbird97/pseuds/songbird97
Summary: It isn’t the first time the forest has brought him a body, but it is the closest one of them has been to death.(In which Haruka thought he was done letting being a witch get him into trouble, and Sousuke, the stranger who shows up in his garden, should really learn to read the fine print.)





	1. mist and matter

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not marking this officially as a multichap just because it'll drive me crazy to look at the incomplete status on the fic when i have no idea how long it'll be or how much i'll add to it, but i do want to continue this in this future. might just make another fic entirely and make it a series. we'll see! in the meantime i hope this makes any semblance of sense. it's been rolling around in my head for upwards of a year by now. <3

It’s the worst storm of the summer, and Haruka’s opened up every window in the house.

“A little longer,” he murmurs, alone and looking at the sky. It’s bruised, or looks that way, a smear of black and blue cracked open with lightning. It spiders out over the trees, reflects across the pond adjacent to the cottage like moonlight would, on any clear night. It’s been a while since he last went this long without seeing it.

The flame of the candle closest to him flickers and dies in the wind. He watches it, knowing that he should have closed the windows hours ago—days ago—if not for the sake of keeping dry then for the sake of keeping the house closed up and lit. But the water lands in a mist up his arms that lifts goosebumps and wakes him a little more, shakes the sleep from his eyes, and he can’t help but think that if the forest has needed this, maybe he has, too.

He wonders about the city.

In the other room his bed is a mess, quilt a tangled lump on the floor because it was too warm to sleep with it on—maybe it was a crash of thunder that had woken him up, the same kind that hammers into the forest now, or maybe it was something else. He hadn’t thought about it when getting up, lighting the candles, walking to the windowsill. He thinks of it only now, watching the storm paint anxiety across the sky. 

The steam from the city always carries over into his part of the forest; it obscures the sky from him now, so he turns away. His feet stick to the wooden flooring, and the front door swings open on its rusted latch long before he gets to it. The floor pools rapidly with rainwater.

All of the candles are out now. Haruka treads the dark and the door is shut behind him by the time he’s sinking into mud. The pond, the trees, the garden—he sees it all in bursts of light. There’s a feed into the rhythm of his heart that doesn’t line up with the rest of the night; suddenly the rustle in the leaves sounds too much like a stumble, the thunder stuttering to a silence rather than rolling into another series of crashes.

“What,” he murmurs, and like he’s beckoned the answer the trees sway left and abruptly there is a shadow deeper than the others—he feels the hair on his neck lift with the energy in the air and with the sight of the body in the clearing just before the trees, the border of his land. The wind heaves up the branches of a weeping willow.

He takes his steps carefully, seeing through the ground as best as he’s learned, and sees one arm twisted painfully underneath, all wrong—broken. He’s broken elsewhere, too, and only mostly physical. There’s a howl above the soil that soars up Haruka’s spine, pinning a bleak comprehension of pain to the forefront of his mind. But there’s a heartbeat that keeps him moving quickly, and the grass is bone dry around the shape of the body he finds.

Well. It isn’t the first time the forest has brought him a body, but it is the closest one of them has been to death.

It’s effort, especially this late at night, and the book is dusty enough from disuse that he sneezes when he pulls it from the shelf. His back aches already from carrying the stranger in, and the blankets on this bed are going to need more than magic to be cleaned of the dirt and the blood—Haruka huffs. There's no exposed bone to be seen, but his right arm is clearly damaged regardless; Haruka sees a dislocated shoulder, torn muscle, and a clean break that's causing the bicep to bulge unnaturally. It might as well have been torn off.

What’s left is the beating he took internally, which Haruka sensed as clearly as the slowing heartbeat when he'd hoisted him off of the ground outside. And it's curious. Bleeding and broken like he’d been hit by a train, but alive and breathing and no bumps or bruises to show for it, save for the arm. Witch’s work, maybe. Likely. Haruka regards the stranger’s face—strong jaw, sharp nose, thin eyes—and considers.

He leans over the stranger, book open by his side.

"What kind of trouble," he wonders quietly, palm pressed flat against the stranger's sternum, and begins.

It takes energy, as it always does. Haruka has to will his own exhaustion away just to begin, and his hand twitches more than usual as the body beneath it starts to come together again. He manages to get the stranger's arm set and corrected, strapped to a makeshift splint hooked thickly around his neck, and by this time his insides are righting themselves on their own. And Haruka is slumped in a chair at the end of it, thinks that he could probably sleep beside this stranger if he really wanted to.

He doesn't.

There's pain in the way this man breathes; a scowl pulling creases at the corners of his mouth even as he appears to be calm. Haruka feels it, too, something bone-deep and worrying, or made of worry, a kind of pain he hasn't reversed and couldn't if he tried. It's irritating and it's what makes Haruka as uneasy as he is, next to him. Mercy has not followed this man, a pattern shattered only across Haruka’s threshold. And he, quite frankly, doesn't need his own tranquility contaminated. He left disruption behind a long time ago.

The rain hasn't let up, and it beats down on the roof now, a white noise loud enough that Haruka has to focus to tell if his breathing keeps even. In fact he sees it better, the steady rise-and-fall of his chest, and thinks that maybe if he lets him be long enough, the forest might supply some peace for him to wake up to.

But thinking it must tip nature’s inclination, or coincidence’s prospect, because Haruka settles, and the stranger wakes.

Wakes like he’s been shocked up the length of his spine, at that. He sits up like he’s being lifted, knees spreading and shoulders twisting forward. If he was peaceful asleep he’s turbulent now, and Haruka’s sat up straight in his chair before his eyes can fully open, the color of the sea and beaten like it, too.

He sucks in a breath so deep it sounds like he's choking, then all of a sudden he's out of breath and heaving, fingers digging into the blankets beneath him. He is staring down at his lap, drying hair in gnarls around his forehead. Haruka notices for the first time the crude cut of his hair, the mean curve of his mouth. He looks frightened and confused, but he _feels_ pissed off. It floods into Haruka through the floor, thick like roots.

"Stay calm," Haruka says, quietly, deciding it best not to let him work through whatever he's thinking on his own. "You're hurt. Try not to move around too much."

His eyes snap wildly to Haruka, his mouth opening on an aborted gasp for air—and only now does the name _Yamazaki_ slam into him hard enough to leave him dizzy. Haruka’s grunt is audible, and he blinks through the stars to meet a gaze predisposed.

He is glaring, though most of it looks forced. His breathing is still heavy when he asks, "Where am I?"

"The forest," Haruka says, keeps it to himself that he's in a witch doctor's home, to boot. "You're not too far from the city, assuming that's where you're from."

The stranger tips his head downward, as if he has to physically push himself to understand each word. “The forest,” he echoes. “How did I end up in the forest?”

“I don't know," Haruka answers. "Sorry. I’m the wrong person to ask.”

“I _am_ in your home, aren’t I?”

"You were half dead in front of it, first.”

The stranger straightens, the knots in his spine rolling upward. His eyes don't leave Haruka for a second. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Haruka presses his fingers into the arm of his chair, tunes himself into the roll of rain outside rather than into whatever is brewing emotionally in the body across from him. "I found you on my land. You were hurt, so I carried you in here and patched you up. I don't know anything other than that."

Now he scowls. Rather unattractively. “You expect me to believe I just ended up here?”

“I’m not denying that you likely didn’t get here on your own. I’m only telling you that I personally have no idea where you came from. And considering you were left in my garden and crushed it flat, you should thank me for not leaving you to die."

His scowl recedes into something stoic, and Haruka matches it. There is something cold and disciplined there, in his eyes, and it reminds Haruka of rusted rivets and doors bolted shut. Memories that he’ll never be fond of.

“To tell you the truth,” he says, gravely, “I’m not so sure I’m actually alive right now.”

If there were a night for Haruka’s intrigue to run low, it would be tonight. And yet. "You're alive. And you'll stay that way, in case you're worried."

"Not worried. Just pessimistic."

"Given the circumstances, I think realistic is a better word," says Haruka. "You're in trouble."

That gets him to quiet, and his expression to fall into something like trepidation. He searches Haruka with his eyes and curls his free hand into the sheets. In this moment he looks very young, and very lost. And Haruka considers for just as long that he might have some compassion left over.

Eventually he says, “I was.” He glances up at the ceiling. “I was expecting to die for it, actually." Ah. "Maybe you could enlighten me as to how I didn't.”

Haruka frowns; but it's as good of a cue as any, and he has a feeling that this stranger's only waiting to be proven right. "Your injuries weren't easy to reverse,” he tries to say casually, though it feels a lot like a confession. “I managed."

He takes on a look of complete comprehension, then lets out a hollow laugh, displaced from any humor. "Great. A couple of witches leave me for dead and I land on the doorstep of another."

Haruka says, “Consider yourself lucky. Whoever it was did a number on your insides. Another fifteen minutes out there alone and I wouldn’t have been able to reverse a hangnail.”

“Fine, except I’m not too sure I’m feeling grateful for it right now.”

“Almost had me fooled,” Haruka deadpans. "Almost had me thinking you were stupid enough to not figure it out, too."

"A cottage in the forest isn’t really doing you any favors. Solitude isn't what I'd call common for humans." He looks at him sidelong; Haruka tries not to twitch at the implication. "You're not exactly subtle, if that's what you're going for."

"It's not." He gets an eyebrow jumping high in response to that, and sighs. Then he gets up. "Stay there."

Stay he does, until Haruka comes back with a cup in his hands. In fact it looks like there isn't a hair out of place from where he was left, eyes still on the chair Haruka had been sitting in, hand still at his side. He blinks slowly when he comes closer, then snaps his head around as if he's been hit when Haruka extends the cup to him.

“Drink it,” he says. “You’ll feel better.”

He narrows his eyes, looks from Haruka to the cup to Haruka again. "You're being awfully hospitable."

"I wouldn't get used to it," he says, blankly. "But you don't need to be suspicious of me."

“I’ve heard that before,” he says. He takes the cup in the end, though, and with the steam curling around his eyes, he says, “You’re kind of a stereotype.”

Haruka fights a smile. “I’ve been called worse things.”

He stares at him; there is still so much distrust in his eyes. “You're extremely fucking obvious,” he says with more confidence, like he was waiting for Haruka's acceptance to press forward. “All of the witches I’ve ever known cut throats to keep their low profiles in tact."

"Then you've never met a nature's witch," Haruka says. "The ones running around the city are artificial and haywire. What did you expect?"

"Not to be saved," he says flatly, and then his eyes flick up. "Artificial is one way to put it."

Haruka scoffs. He wants to say that there isn't another way to put it, but instead says, "The city and I have an agreement. I have nothing to hide."

"That's … different."

"It's also not your concern," he replies.

"You've told me this much," the stranger points out. His eyes are weighted, looking held by wires and suspended over something cold. "No one ever mentioned you."

Haruka looks away. "I don't make a habit of hanging around other witches,” he says, pointedly. “Make any sense to you?"

The look that he throws Haruka says that it does, but that he's not appreciative of the reminder. Haruka looks at him, feeling that he is too full of experience for someone his age but also that he still has so much naivety; knowledgeable of the city, but of the city alone. In an uncomfortable sort of way, it is almost nostalgic. Nothing has changed, it seems, about the people there.

He takes a deep breath, staring down into his cup. He says, carefully, as though he’s picking out each word separately, “I don’t know your name.”

“Haruka,” he says, unhesitatingly. He has nothing to be afraid of.

The stranger nods. “Yamazaki.”

“I know,” Haruka says, although he had felt uncomfortable thinking it until now, without his permission. Yamazaki frowns, and Haruka huffs shortly. “If it makes you feel any better, your given name didn’t come through.”

Yamazaki, eyes storming, turns away. “Not many people use it,” he says, and breathes deeply once more, chest rising and falling. There's pain in it still, even if he is trying not to let it show.

Haruka says, "You should rest more. It hasn't been long since I found you."

Yamazaki makes a considerably displeased noise, but he lets his eyes close and sinks backward. "I thought the healing thing was just a myth," he says quietly, the hand wrapped in the sling carefully closing. "None of the witches in the city can do anything like this."

Haruka rises from his chair again, sighing. He curls his own hands. "I already told you there's a difference between them and me."

"If someone in the city said that they'd be dead by morning," Yamazaki says, as Haruka puts the book he'd been using back in its place on the shelf. "Witches in the city are obsessed with being feared."

"Seems like whatever they're doing is working."

"And that doesn't bother you?" Yamazaki asks, ignoring the comment. 

Haruka glances at him. "It doesn't concern me. I wasn't needed in the city, so I left. I'm still not needed, so I haven't gone back. Most of the witches there don't even know about me."

"Most."

Haruka says, "I don't follow your curiosity."

"You don't need to follow it," Yamazaki says, eyes opening halfway. "I was talking more about how they're painting witches out to be terrifying."

"Some of us can be," Haruka admits, unabashed. "That doesn't concern me, either."

Yamazaki grunts. "You live alone out here?"

"I do."

"That doesn't exactly seem safe."

"I don't need protection," Haruka says. "I trust the forest and my own strengths."

Yamazaki stares at him, warily. From here, across the room, he is a sight to be seen; he looks too big for the cot but too small for his torn clothes. "You say that like the forest is alive."

Haruka's mouth twitches. It's probably best not to entertain the question between the lines of that comment. Instead he asks, "Are you feeling much pain?"

Yamazaki huffs, wincing as he leans further back. "I feel like they dropped a train on me."

"Cruentam curse," Haruka says, wrinkling his nose. "Crushes your organs from the inside. It's supposed to do the same to your bones, but clearly there was some margin of error in their execution."

"I guess I should be thankful for that," Yamazaki mutters. 

"I still would have been able to reverse it. But it would have taken much longer." Haruka moves back to the chair, Yamazaki watching him all the while. "It also would have been remarkably more difficult to carry you in here."

"No levitation charms to help you out with that?"

Haruka leans his face into his hand, blinking. "I don't like to use magic on someone's body unless I have to."

Yamazaki sort of gives him a once-over, like he's finally decided to size Haruka up. "Sort of a pointless moral code, if you ask me."

"I didn't."

"Yeah, well, I'm your best opportunity for conversation right now."

"I like the quiet," Haruka says, lifting en eyebrow. "If that's what you're insinuating. Living out here alone has been good for me." 

"And no one ever bothers you." It isn't a question.

"I've just recently been bothered," Haruka says pointedly, and Yamazaki scoffs and turns away. "No, not usually. The ones who know I'm in the forest know better than to try and come here. That or they just can't find me in it."

"Then how did I get here?" Yamazaki asks, still looking elsewhere. 

Haruka shrugs. "I don't question what the forest brings me."

"Do you question what it takes?" Yamazaki asks, and the question confuses Haruka deeply. He frowns, listening to the wind's howl quiet to a whistle. 

He admits, "I don't follow."

Yamazaki is quiet for a long time. He gives Haruka one final glance and says, "Of course you don't." Then, abruptly, he begins to get up.

Haruka is more surprised by the suddenness of it than anything; he watches him the whole time, but it's not until he has two feet planted firmly on the floor that he speaks. "What are you doing?"

“Leaving,” he says. His voice is strained. “I have to go.”

For a moment the wind outside sounds like laughter, incredulous and mocking. "Don't be stupid. I just told you that you should rest more. You're still healing."

"I have someone to get back to."

"Touching, but you can't take the exertion. Trust me."

“Trust you,” he says, on the edge of a wheeze. “The last time I trusted a witch I hardly escaped with my life.”

Haruka blinks. “You forget that you’re looking at the reason you escaped with it at all,” he says evenly. “And it won’t go so smoothly if you leave.”

Yamazaki is glaring. He says, “Nail me to the floor, then.”

“Please," Haruka sighs, tired. "You’re free to leave whenever you want. I’m only advising you in terms of what’s best for your injuries. If you think you can handle the storm in the condition you’re in, be my guest.”

The forest comes through for him when thunder punctuates his deadpan. Yamazaki mirrors it. "I can't afford to have anyone worry about me."

"Look on the bright side. They won't be worrying about a corpse."

He flinches, brow furrowing. “You’re a shitty host.”

“I’m a recluse, scary witch,” Haruka drones. “Are you disappointed?”

Yamazaki turns, his scowl facing the wall. He is tense and curled in at his shoulders, looking better than he did limp and broken but somehow feeling just as helpless. And Haruka thinks that he could choke on Yamazaki’s agitation, on how uneasy he is, if he really tried.

"If I'm alive," he says, "I need to go. I have … people."

" _Heartwarming_ ," Haruka presses further.

For the first time, he takes a step forward. Haruka’s amazed that he manages not to wobble. "Things will get complicated if they worry. They can raise hell in a matter of minutes."

"And they wouldn't if you had died?"

"It'd be different if I was. I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it then. But I can, because I’m not."

"I'm starting to feel sorry about that," says Haruka, and he gets a blink in response. "Like I said. You're free to go. But in your position, I certainly wouldn't."

"At this point I'd assume you wouldn't step foot in the city regardless of what state you were in."

Haruka stares, tries not to let defense creep into his expression. "You're not wrong. But you also wouldn't be staying to argue with me if you weren't hesitant about leaving."

That, finally, gets him to truly pause. He glances toward the window, then toward the door, and then lastly at the bed he’d risen from.

“One night should be enough,” Haruka tells him. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you don’t seem like the type to stay in line. This can’t be the first time you haven’t returned for a night.”

His mouth twitches, and Haruka knows he isn’t wrong. But denial is in his very aura, tense in his silhouette, in the frame of his shoulders and chest.

He says, “You sound like my father. And really,” he says harshly, no fondness behind it, “you don’t seem old enough for that.”

“In human years, I doubt I’m any older than you.”

“You’re pretentious as hell,” he says. “A _raging_ stereotype.”

Haruka fights a smirk. “I promise not to ask you to crawl into my oven.”

“One night,” Yamazaki says, refusing to entertain him by responding directly. “I’m leaving as soon as I see the sun.”

“Good luck with that,” Haruka quietly says, feeling the swell of clouds above in his hands and mouth and veins. “I haven’t seen it in weeks.”

Yamazaki frowns. Then he looks suspicious. “You don't seem any more trusting than I am. Can you seriously trust me not to kill you in your sleep?”

“I’m not naive enough to not leave charms here and there,” Haruka says, rising from the chair once more. “If you tried, you’d be dead before you crossed my threshold.”

Yamazaki’s eyes leave him, and he sinks down onto the bed. “Comforting.”

“Just don’t try anything,” he says, sighing. He watches the sway of his posture, tall and broad, a silhouette that must usually be so sturdy. Then he turns away. “You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” he blurts, yanking Haruka’s gaze back toward him. He is looking back at him, and his mouth is pulled into a tight line. “For saving me.”

Haruka settles himself, and feels a bit of the world around them settle, too. “You’re welcome.”

He looks grateful for the short response, and lays carefully down. And with this, Haruka crosses out of the room.

He does charm the doorway of the room he’ll be sleeping in, more out of habit than anything else. The window is still open, but the candle on the sill has long been out. It’s cold to the touch, and dripping with rainwater.

He looks up at the sky all over again. He smiles. “Maybe a bit more,” he says, and shuts the windows when he turns away. He touches the wick of the candle in passing, and it lights.

In the morning, Yamazaki is gone. In fact there’s no trace of him besides the warmth he’s left behind on the bed he’d slept on, and Haruka doesn’t know whether to think of him as stupid or determined. Maybe he’s both. Maybe he’s neither—maybe he only wanted to ensure the comfort of whoever was waiting for him in the city this badly, that he'd let it curtain everything else.

Or maybe it doesn’t matter which it is. Haruka settles on this, then settles on worrying over his garden. It has been less than a day since the forest brought him another body, and he hopes that he won’t see another for a while.

But even under the clouds, there is clarity for him. He feels a swell in the air, one that pulls him to his feet and draws his eyes to a clearing in the trees. They bend for him, or for his mind or heart, and as always—as always, somehow, he knows. There is a familiar face headed toward the city, and his safety, brought with the direction of the wind, is delivered to Haruka with uncertainty and trepidation.

He knows what the forest wants from him.

“No,” Haruka says, very pointedly. The wind quiets, and the air stills.

In the end, though, he knows it wasn’t ever meant as a suggestion; he leaves after sunset. And when the rain clears, and the moon finally shines down again through the clouds that night, painting the forest floor white, it’s to guide Haruka's path to the city.


	2. smoke and glow

It’s a city he hasn't seen in nearly three years. Not that it's something he could forget so easily. The stain of it still runs through his veins, scars his palms with a hesitance he can’t erase. Haruka isn’t looking forward to the smell of smoke and the heaviness of the air clogged with steam, anyway. He definitely isn’t looking forward to whatever he’s being brought to.

He knew what he was leaving behind, when he left. Beaten backs and bound hands and an endless cycle and saving and being saved. Nothing he ever missed, even now. Nothing he ever cared to feel nostalgic about.

But there is a tug, and it’s something he can’t deny. As much as he would like to. The good memories were few and far between, but strong.

He wonders what memories took Yamazaki back so quickly.

Haruka holds onto the quiet of the forest as long as he can, knowing that the city will replace any tranquility it has with whistles and bells and shouting, raucous laughter out of place. The trees canopy over the path he hasn’t taken in years, the wind gentler without the disruption of a storm. The air is still electric, but instead of swelling his limbs it carries him forward. The sooner he goes, maybe the sooner he can leave. The forest will care for his home, as it has cared for him.

At most points, he follows where the forest opens for him, but at others he rests—as he sits by a stream and watches the water he dares to question whether or not this might be the best idea. He could change his mind; this he knows. The forest never forces him. It only expects, and he only delivers. Always has.

He thinks of his grandmother, and of her tales of fairies and nymphs in the forest. Silly childhood stories, none of which were even half-true but built to give him comfort in his difference, and a home in a place that seemed too large and too dark for any young child.

It’s laughable now, that he used to be so terrified of the forest, when it was always so ready to welcome him. But that was before the city’s witches came along.

Haruka breathes, and the branches above him sway in tandem. He hears the city long before it ever comes into close enough proximity, and chooses not to care whether it’s in his head or supplied by something else entirely. When the trees do open up, a sliver that follows the curve of a metal building up to the open sky, dim with another sunset, Haruka is flooded with a different kind of life.

A heart that beats to the rhythm of quieted streets, it isn’t until Haruka finds himself in the city center that he realizes how well he remembers it. Three years, apparently, hasn’t been nearly enough to erase it all; he recognizes every shop, every corner, every carved street name and each rickety carriage. Some faces, too—but they look past him, with no trace of familiarity.

He’s glad, then, that his parting spell worked.

Haruka turns up to look at the sky, blackening gently as a carriage crawls by. He tightens his coat around himself, the fabric curling at his knees, and turns a stone over and over again in his palm. He hopes, somewhat numbly, that Yamazaki hasn’t already gone back to wherever his witches are situated.

The stone pulses. Direction comes through the ground and floods into him, an older familiarity that feels empty to practice all alone, and with it he turns to the street it pulls him to.

It’s getting late, so most of the shopping district has shut down by now. The gutters are still dripping from rainfall, and the cobblestone ground is littered with puddles that reflect each streetlight. Every few dark buildings there are one or two with lights still coming through their windows; an old bar that’s been around long before Haruka was born, a pottery shop that looks as though it’s just about to close, and a bakery selling its last two loaves of bread to a older man with a child holding tight to his back. It’s only when Haruka’s turned down onto a third street, one he doesn’t recognize as well, that the stone burns hot enough for him to drop it into his pocket.

And so he finds his mark. Open as it is, the city feels as suffocating as ever.

The shop in question has no windows, and no apparent light source; just an old sign held to the building with rusted bolts and a curtain that’s tattered at the edges hanging long and wide, as a makeshift door. A pawn shop. Haruka almost wants to laugh.

He enters, the curtain falling around him, and though he’d carried Yamazaki on his back and stood over him for hours not a full two days before, he’s surprised to see how broad he is, how tall he is when he’s upright and uninjured. He seems stronger solely in the way he holds himself, and the makeshift sling that had caused him to curl in is gone.

Haruka steps into the shop, selects an amulet at random from one of the shelves lined up at the side, and circles the edge of the shop. The owner, a short man with tangled hair, catches his gaze almost immediately.

“Good evening to you,” he says, he voice a raspy and calculated drawl. His eyes fall to the amulet in Haruka’s hand, and his mouth curls up in intrigue. “Always fascinating to see what folks come to reap during the final hour. I warn you, I won’t part with that for very little.”

“I’m not worried about the price,” Haruka says, and from where he’d been combing through a few decks of old cards, Yamazaki’s entire body tenses. As Haruka drops a small bag of coins on the counter, the owner’s brow lifts, and Yamazaki’s eyes come to regard him.

“Always fascinating,” the owner reiterates, and wastes no time dividing the amount for the amulet apart from the bag. “Is there anything else I could do for you? Perhaps a new watch for that chain at your pocket. A shame to see a broken one hung from such a fine chain, don't you think?”

“This will do just fine for now,” Haruka says, taking back the rest of his coins. “Thank you.”

“The pleasure is mine.”

But Haruka is watching Yamazaki now, hoping he’s only subtly amused at the tense shock pulling at his expression. He pockets the amulet, breaks their eye contact, and exits the shop without another word. The curtains feel lighter than they did before.

When Yamazaki inevitably follows, Haruka is waiting for him, back against the next shop over. And he refuses any eye contact, walking right by.

The street is empty, so Haruka wastes no time—he twitches a few fingers and the cards Yamazaki had been looking through fly from his palm, coming directly into Haruka’s. By the time he’s stopped and turned around, Haruka’s holding them up for him to see.

He says, “Don’t tell me you’re a gambler, as well.”

Yamazaki stares at him long enough for Haruka to take a few steps closer. He doesn’t look stunned anymore, but certainly irritated, or inconvenienced. Slowly, he asks, “What are you doing here?”

The street feels quieter than it was when Haruka was alone, but maybe it's just that their silence is heavier. Haruka looks to the sky again, a deeper black than ink, and says, “I was feeling nostalgic.”

“I can’t shake off you fucking witches,” Yamazaki says, too loudly for the quiet street. He turns to face Haruka fully, his face a terrible mess of uncertainty. “You followed me to the city.”

“I did,” Haruka agrees, and tosses the deck back to him. Yamazaki catches it, without looking away from him. “The forest wouldn’t let me be.”

“Why?”

“I suppose we'll find out,” Haruka says candidly, then glances up the street once more. “You're not already going back to the people who nearly killed you.”

“Not that it's any of your business what I decide to do,” Yamazaki says, incredulous now, “but no.”

“I’ll follow wherever else you're headed, then.”

“Assuming I trust you enough to take you anywhere.”

Haruka narrowly manages to not roll his eyes. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to practice gratitude?”

“You didn't answer me,” Yamazaki says, taking one step closer. “I thought you made it clear you weren’t interested in coming to the city.”

“I don’t plan on staying long.”

“Tell me why you’re here,” he demands, voice taut and straining. “If I get caught walking around with a witch—”

“No one has to know what I am,” Haruka interrupts. “But they will if you keep saying it.”

Finally, Yamazaki goes quiet again. His eyes are just as intense as they were two nights ago, but now they’re less frantic and a little more stormy; he isn't worried. He's tired of this. He says, “They always know when another one’s around.”

Haruka shakes his head. “We can only detect our own kind. I can’t separate false witches from mortals, and they can’t separate me from you.”

“Maybe I don't want to take any chances,” Yamazaki says, and abruptly continues to walk.

Haruka watches him, taking a deep breath. He knows he has to follow his gut with this, even if he'd rather be anywhere but here. “I was hoping you’d figure it out on your own, but I'm here so that I can protect you.”

Yamazaki throws him a glance over his shoulder. “I won't need protection if you leave.”

Haruka huffs, but this time gives chase. “You should know them better than that by now,” he says.

“I don't need a lecture from you,” Yamazaki scoffs. “You've got one hell of a complex.”

“I didn't come here because I wanted to,” Haruka says. Then he catches Yamazaki’s elbow, halting him again, pulling him back enough to catch his eye. “I don't need anything from you, Yamazaki. But I'm not leaving.”

Yamazaki searches his eyes. He is looking for a motive, or maybe just for something other than Haruka’s secondhand obligation. “I don't get it," he admits. "What do you have to gain?”

But the answer to that goes deeper than words; it's something rooted in Haruka’s very being. “Nothing from you, or anyone else,” he answers. “I only do what I'm told.”

“Your misplaced moral code again,” Yamazaki grumbles, then runs both hands over his hair, one still clutching the old deck of cards, and says, "What makes you think I need protecting in the first place?"

As means of an answer, or most of one, Haruka glances pointedly back to the forest. "Just a feeling," he says, then meets Yamazaki's eyes again. "You have a reason to be scared of them. I don't."

"They drove you out before."

"It wasn't just them," Haruka says. "And even then, I wasn't afraid."

Yamazaki's expression doesn't change, but he steps close enough so that Haruka has to tip his head up to meet his gaze. "What if I told you it isn't me I'm afraid for?"

"Hardly makes a difference to me."

"You'd protect strangers. Because a bunch of trees told you to."

Haruka's mouth twitches. "If it were easy for you to understand, I'd explain it to you," he says. "But if that's how you're choosing to understand it, yes."

Yamazaki starts to shake his head, then turns around, walks away a few steps, and paces back. Then he does it again. Haruka watches him all the while, choosing patience above amusement, studying the contention in his eyes. 

When he finally slows, he says, "Alright."

Haruka lifts an eyebrow. Yamazaki looks at him and scowls.

 _"Alright,_ " he repeats. "I'll let you ride out whatever this is. As long as it means you're in it for them, too."

"I'm not in it for anyone," Haruka clarifies, inviting Yamazaki's annoyed glance. "But I'll keep them from harm, if it comes to it."

"You'd better let me do the talking when we get there, then."  _They can raise hell in a matter of minutes._

Haruka lets Yamazaki hold his eyes for a few seconds more, as he remembers this, as he remembers that Yamazaki represents everything he'd left to escape from. And he thinks, also, that he knew what he was getting into when he came.

He says, “Fine.” 

Yamazaki looks him over, a calculating search, and ends it with a huff. "We'll be dead by the end of the week," he laments, walking up the street once more, and it's all Haruka can do to assume he's meant to follow.

The beginning of their  _there_ turns out to be a hooded shop, or what's left of an old one. The stone used to build the walls up is worn and there are thick black curtains covering the wide windows. It hardly looks like a place to live, Haruka thinks, and perhaps this is exactly what he's meant to think.

“Down,” is all Yamazaki says, before he unlocks the door and heads inside. Haruka enters behind him and understands quickly, when the floor only advances a few feet before it descends into stairs. Behind him, the door latches shut.

At the bottom of the stairs, a corridor curls around and there's another door, with three separate locks that Yamazaki undoes with ease. Past the door is a hallway cutting left. Then there are stairs even still, lit by a line of bare bulbs in the stone ceiling.

It lasts a while, this second set of them. And the stairs are lined with doors, some locked tight and others open, dark inside or alight and dancing with quiet shadows, breathing quiet life into the vacancy of the hall. In one room alone, there's a little girl who watches them walk by, a tattered doll in her dirtied hands.

And at the very bottom, minutes past the end of the doors, there is nothing.

At least, there is nothing apparent. A stone wall stands abruptly where the stairs might have led further downward at one point or another, cutting halfway into the final step and locking into the ceiling. Yamazaki looks back at Haruka, his expression unreadable; then glances up behind them both. After a moment of quiet, he kneels.

He opens the deck of cards, plucks out a jack, and uses it to slice across the top of his thumb. Stained at the edge now with blood, he presses the card to a white stone next to the bottom step.

By the time he’s back on his feet there’s a clicking noise, then the terrible sound of stone grinding together. Undoubtedly magical, and certainly not falsely so, the stone wall moves back. And under Yamazaki’s expectant gaze, Haruka is stunned.

The staircase opens up into another city center. It is wide and round and glowing, and a circle of shops and apartments surround it, spreading far enough to house hundreds and deep enough in all directions that Haruka can’t see where it ends. If the city above is asleep, this one is only halfway there, brightly lit and pulsing. The ground is soil and scattered cobblestone, and floods both uncertainty and amazement into Haruka’s veins, thick and slow.

Yamazaki steps through, still looking at him. He says, with some semblance of knowing, “Welcome to the underground.”

“When,” Haruka starts, then stops. “How long has this been here?”

“Longer than you or I have been around.” At last, Yamazaki turns away and starts to walk. “Follow me.”

Haruka does, but with a mind displaced, through the streets of the underground city. He knows that this is magic, can feel it in his bones, and it is this feeling of knowing that keeps him wondering how he wasn't aware of it before. Had his grandmother known about this place, when she was alive? Had his parents, before they disappeared?

Or, he thinks, somewhat dangerously, had Rin?

Yamazaki turns to him, starts to search his face again, and it is this feeling of being analyzed that brings him out of it, in time to see Yamazaki pull a smirk. "Did that really catch you off guard?"

Haruka frowns. "I almost want to say you did this on purpose."

"Wouldn't have needed you to save my life if I could," Yamazaki says, and opens the front door to a tall building. "Come on."

Haruka pauses, watching the unfamiliar smile curl onto Yamazaki's face, and steps inside. "That almost sounded like gratitude."

"Don't get used to it," Yamazaki says, and leads him down to the first door. He pulls out a single key, wrapped in a blue ribbon, and for a moment he hesitates. He looks up at Haruka again, and his eyes are hooded with something new. "Remember to let me explain," he says, looking like he's convincing himself more than anyone, and opens the door.

Immediately, whatever noise there was behind the door stutters to a dead silence. Light illuminates the hall, as well as Yamazaki's front, and then there's the sound of a chair scraping across a wooden floor as someone abruptly stands from it. 

"Sousuke," comes a voice.

Yamazaki starts to rub the back of his neck. "Hey," he says, and then looks at Haruka and sighs. "Got a wild fucking story for you guys."

A shadow approaches, and someone reaches out and clutches the front of Yamazaki's shirt with both hands. His eyes are wide, but not teary, and he shakes Yamazaki with almost comical difficulty, at least a full head shorter and his hair a wild, fiery orange. "Sousuke-senpai! We've been looking  _everywhere_  for you!"

"Momo," Yamazaki sighs, settling a hand over his hair. "I told you to stay put."

"We couldn't listen to that!" The redhead cries, and now he is teary-eyed, but it all seems to break apart when he catches sight of Haruka. "Oh."

His expression turns curious as Yamazaki walks by, taking Haruka by the shoulder and towing him in. "Makoto," Yamazaki says.

Haruka draws up the conclusion, rather easily, that he's talking to the tallest one in the room. He must be the one who stood from his chair, because he stands still as a statue by a small kitchen table, brown hair a crudely-cut mess and a pair of glasses framing his wide green eyes, and he looks the most shocked out of anyone. From the tightness of the room, Haruka feels disbelief and confusion seep in, watered down by relief but still much too concentrated for his comfort. It's because of this, along with Yamazaki's visible connection to him, that the gut-punch of the name  _Tachibana_ comes through.

"They told us," he starts to say, straightening a bit. "They said that you were—"

"I bet they did," Yamazaki interrupts, then looks sidelong at Haruka. "I got lucky. They don't know."

Tachibana looks between the two of them, looking far too caught off guard to develop anything in response. From behind, the redhead clutches onto Yamazaki's shoulder and fails to ask quietly, "Who's the guy in the coat?"

"Luck," Haruka answers, before he can hold his tongue.

Yamazaki's glare is short-lived, at least. "He saved my life," he admits. "Now he's following me home like a stray cat."

Tachibana's coming closer now, and with him out of the way Haruka can see someone else, younger and silver-haired, peering around the corner and staring at Yamazaki with unfettered relief. "Sousuke-senpai," he says.

Haruka blinks; Tachibana starts saying something to Yamazaki, but he doesn't hear much of it at all. "Hello," he says instead, to the silver-haired witch, who must be an open book by nature because his name comes through immediately.

He looks a little startled to have been spoken to directly; but surely he knows, because he steps around the corner fully and regards Haruka without any fear at all. He asks, "You saved his life?"

Haruka says, "I managed." 

"Did you get to him before or after they did?"

Haruka frowns, and so does Nitori, because he has his answer from that alone. "I did what I could as soon as I found him."

"Thank you," says Tachibana, abruptly enough that Haruka's surprised to hear it. When he looks, Yamazaki has turned away, arms crossed over his chest, and Tachibana is looking at him with a kind of sincerity that is nearly painful to look at. "For doing that for him. You had to have known who was after him, and you still—" he stops, takes a deep breath, and steps closer. "I don't know how to begin thanking you."

Haruka blinks. "I appreciate that," he says. "I'm sorry you've been involved with them."

Tachibana smiles halfway. "Hard to help it, nowadays," he says, and then gives a short bow. "I'm Makoto. Tachibana."

It's been a while since Haruka's seen anyone act so formal. He tips his chin down. "Haruka Nanase."

"Momotarou Mikoshiba!" calls the redhead from before, who rushes quickly enough to Haruka to make him jolt back a bit, catching one of his hands. "Nice to meetcha! There's never anyone new around here, it gets so _boring_. Did you really save Sousuke-senpai? Was he almost _dead?_ Did you see the others? How bad were the—"

"Momo," Yamazaki says firmly, and Mikoshiba stops talking with a squeak, pulling his hands back like he's been burned. Haruka feels similar, watching him slink away like a scolded child.

"Nanase," Tachibana says, unperturbed, and pushes his glasses up into his hair. "I feel like I've heard that name before. Is your family from the city?"

Haruka looks to Yamazaki, who is staring at the ground. "Not exactly," he says. "Only my grandmother, but she passed away some time ago."

"Hardly matters," Yamazaki mutters, cutting across the small room, dropping the deck of cards on the table as he walks by. "He needed a place to stay, so I told him he could sleep here. Won't be for long."

"A night is more than enough," Haruka says, though he doesn't appreciate being thrown into a half-baked story when he could easily just go by the truth. With another nature's witch around, he doesn't see the issue—but if trusting Yamazaki means finding out why he was brought here, he figures he can go along with anything. "I don't expect anyone to go out of their way for me."

But there is no hesitance in Tachibana's eyes when he says, "You can stay as long as you want, Nanase-san."

Briefly, Haruka wonders how someone this pleasant can handle a force as negative as Yamazaki, but elects not to question it. "I won't stay longer than I need. As I hear it, you don't need any extra attention."

"Won't make a difference in the long run," Yamazaki says, back to them both as he places a kettle on the stove. "If they came here just to tell you I was dead, it's safe to assume all they wanted was me."

"They didn't," Nitori says, from his same spot in the hall. His voice is quiet, and Tachibana's shoulders tense. "Gou-san did."

In the next moment, several things happen: first, Yamazaki drops the kettle, which makes a terrible  _clang_ against the metal of the stove, and the small flame there extinguishes. A terrible silence takes hold of the room, and Nitori looks caught between immense relief and utter horror at what he's revealed, and Haruka feels a bit like he's been taken by the throat.

Yamazaki turns, a slow and terrible twist of his neck. After a moment of staring, he asks, "Why would she come?"

No one answers for a long minute, or if they do, Haruka doesn't hear it. Eventually, between waves of gentle shock, he manages to hear Tachibana say, "She wanted to make sure her message was clear, Sousuke."

"Here. She came  _here."_

"She was waiting for us in the kitchen," Nitori continues, then scuttles away from the hall and goes to the far end of the room, near the front door.

Tachibana says, with a voice like he's anticipating an eruption, "Sousuke."

" _Fuck_ ," Yamazaki hisses, connecting the palm of his hand to the countertop. "I should have known. They don't give a shit about what I did. They were using me as a fucking example." 

"Maybe we should talk about this later," Tachibana tries to amend, eyes darting about the room.

It's only when they land on Haruka, unaware and too apologetic, that Haruka blurts, "Kou Matsuoka."

Now all four of them are looking at him, and Haruka realizes that he may have just painted a very large target on himself. Mikoshiba, who's taken to sitting on the floor near a short table, rocks forward enough so that his hands touch the ground, and asks, "Nanase-san knows Gou-san?"

Tachibana looks to Yamazaki, who is pinning Haruka with an extraordinarily expectant glare. "I don't know," he says, voice like gravel. "Does he?"

It was never so simple to be taken back to those memories of laughter and joy, even when he tried, but it's been long enough since he's heard the name that Haruka can't help the swell in his chest, and the terrible dread that follows the implication that something is very wrong with who she has become. Haruka turns to stare at the door, weighing his options, and chooses his words carefully. "I did a long time ago."

"How?"

The voice belongs to Tachibana, and Haruka feels a rush of heat. He doesn't think, as per Yamazaki's story, that he's allowed to fully explain, so instead he says, "I knew her brother."

"The loudass mechanic on third?" Yamazaki asks.

Haruka ignores him. "And their father. He was close with my grandmother."

"You've met Gou-san's family?" Mikoshiba asks, eyes wide with an excitement that seems displaced from the overarching attitude of the room. Haruka frowns.

"Her father was dead before I got to know him. But yes."

"Fuck me," Yamazaki hisses under his breath, turning the stove off with far too aggressive of a movement.

Haruka moves toward him, the rest of the room blotting out. He demands, "Since when has Kou been involved with them?"

"Involved?" Yamazaki parrots, his voice a terrible twist of laughter and a snarl. "What you saw they did to me? That was her handiwork."

Whatever amount of dread that's been rising in Haruka's throat congeals and expands. Tachibana says, too quietly, "I really don't think we should be talking about this."

Yamazaki doesn't look away from Haruka, but says, "You're right. Sorry." And now he looks up, across the room at Nitori and Mikoshiba. "You two need to head upstairs before the landlady makes her rounds. It's almost curfew."

Mikoshiba straightens like an arrow. "But—"

"Momo-kun," Nitori says, sounding both nervous and far too calm. "Let's go."

Something about the tone of it must deliver something serious to Mikoshiba, because his excitement burns out immediately. "Okay," he says decidedly, and gets up for the door. 

Nitori turns to the rest of them. "We're glad you're back, Sousuke-senpai."

"I knew you weren't dead!" Mikoshiba claims, as a finality, before Nitori elbows him out the door and slams it shut behind them, and all that's left is Mikoshiba's muffled protests. 

Tachibana sighs. "It's late," he says, eyes on Yamazaki. "If they don't know you're here now, we should take advantage of it to get some rest before they figure it out."

"I know," Yamazaki says, and Haruka looks up to see his expression just in time to meet his eyes. "When you implied you had a history with the city's witches, I didn't know this is what you meant."

Haruka turns away. "Neither did I."

"It doesn't matter now," Tachibana tries to mediate. "Please. All that matters for now is that everyone's okay."

"Yeah, yeah," Yamazaki says, and maybe says something else, too, but Haruka stops listening.

The last time he saw Kou, she could barely lift a wrench without his guidance. She was young and bright and positive, with hair down to her knees that only Rin could manage to pin back in a reasonable manner. And the last time he saw Rin, it was when he'd rather die than let Kou go anywhere near what was on the rise. Haruka had thought, truly, that he was doing them a kindness by leaving. 

Now he can only wonder what's changed. In three years the city has darkened in its soul, been warped from the inside out. And to think that the smile of a teenage girl—one all too familiar to him, all too familiar to the best of his memories here—could be at the center of it all—

"Haruka," Yamazaki says, and Haruka looks up, startled. Yamazaki has crossed his arms over his chest, is watching him with his brow furrowed, and Tachibana just looks concerned. "What are you thinking?"

Haruka relaxes. The confusion and relief is gone from the ground now, flooded only with a deep apprehension. He looks down at his coat, at his grandmother's chain, and takes into his palm the broken watch clipped to one of the rings. He is thinking many things.

Only one thing, though, seems to matter in this moment. "My watch is broken," he says plainly, and looks up once more to regard Yamazaki, finding patience there where he wouldn't have expected it before. And he breathes. "I think I'll need to see that mechanic on third."


End file.
